Entries in " pay per click "  

How To Improve Your Google PPC Campaign Quality Score

Shot this quick video that goes over a trick I picked up a few months back. It shows yet another way to improve your Quality Score for your websites that you're marketing with Google AdWords. That can only mean one thing... More money!

Check it out:

Quickly and Easily Harvest Google Search Result URL's

Harvesting URL's is very useful when doing PPC marking on Google AdWords Content Network (placements) or Cost Per View marketing. Basically you provide the advertising networks what pages you specifically want your ad to appear on.

Obviously placing your ads on the pages (especially the first few pages) of organic search results will result in your ads being displayed to highly targeted traffic. So I put together this quick video that shows you how to do it.

Here are some pages from the video:

Get Grease Monkey Here

Get Google URL Harvester here

Watch video on Cost Per View advertising here

3 Hours of PPC Training Here

Targeted Web Traffic For Only 2 Cents Per Visitor

What NOT To Do When Learning PPC

Like all good marketing junkies I make it a point to subscribe to the mailing list of many other marketers that I admire. I like to read their emails, study their pitches, subject lines, etc.

While reading an email from Ryan Deiss promoting his latest product (Get Money From Google, which is an excellent product btw), I stumbled on this ad...

Naturally I was curious and so I clicked the add just to see what loaded. I found this.

Now I'm not trying to knock the poor sap who is obviously trying to learn Google AdWords but there is a good lesson to learn here...

Pause your campaigns until you are ready to go live with them!

How To Find Profitable Keywords With Virtually No Competition

It's no secret that internet marketers make heavy use of PPC marketing. With the steady rise of online advertising the PPC competition has really heated up. Making your campaigns more expensive and tougher to get visitors to your website.

A few weeks ago I found an awesome report called Digging For Gold that discusses a few techniques to find profitable "natural language" keywords. Because these are long tail and phrased in a natural way, the competition for these phrases is very low — or doesn't exist at all.

The report costs $7 but I would of happily paid triple that and walked away happy. It details a few tricks and also has a pretty clever way to use Google Analytics to see the exact phrases searched for when your ads were triggered and the user clicked your ad.

Remember, google only sends the "keyword" match but not the actual phrase that was searched. There is a huge difference there. Using Google Analytics to track patterns will let you know what long tail phrases to bid on and chances are you will get extremely cheap rates on those ads.

I don't want to give away how to execute the trick so go get the report. Definitely good stuff.

Check out Digging For Gold Here

Making Money Selling Leads To Offline Companies

We've all seen the offers in the various affiliate networks for lead generation. A lot of companies pay, and pay nicely, for a qualified lead. I'm sure a few of you reading this are using this method to put money in your pocket every day. But there is a lot of money to be made if you expand outside of the affiliate networks.

Selling Leads To Offline Companies

Ever considered generating qualified leads online for resale to an offline company? I can tell you that this can be very profitable! This takes a lot more work and you will definitely need some salesmanship, but if you are able to build this type of relationship with a company than you can turn a very nice profit!

How does it work? Well let's look at an imaginary example...

Say you meet a dentist who is looking to improve his client base. He know he can find customers online but has no clue how to go about it. He obviously has no clue how to generate qualified leads online and doesn't have the time, or desire, to start learning how. How can you help?

Well, since you are an internet marketer you will be able to bring your skill set to the table and start providing qualified leads for a fee. You can usually get a much nicer payout than on the affiliate networks but the downside is that the dentist probably doesn't have the money off hand to pay you for as many leads as you can bring to the table.

What Type Of Companies To Focus On

Any company that has a sales and marketing department. Any company with an established sales department will usually pay for qualified leads. You can also focus on individual sales people themselves, for example an insurance salesman. You can charge per lead or go for some sort of revenue sharing. There are many options and they will depend on the company, people you deal with, profit potential, conversion rates, average sale amount, etc.

You will have to be a bit of a salesman yourself to land this type of deal. A lot of these companies will be skeptical because they are not familiar with internet marketing. It would probably be a good idea to throw them some leads for free to prove you are able to give them what they are looking for. If you are able to continuously provide qualified, highly targeted, leads then their sales department should be able to close at a nice percentage.

But Is It Worth The Trouble?

As mentioned above a lot of these companies may not be able to afford a high number of leads. So how do you make sure it's worth the trouble? Well, focus on companies that are selling higher priced items. They will usually pay more for a good lead or be willing to do a revenue share. A good example might be a plastic surgery center. If you are able to land a revenue sharing deal then they can handle as many leads as you can bring and your profit will sky rocket as long as they have a decent sales floor.

I know someone who makes $500-$600 a day, every day, selling leads to 2 local businesses. The total cost of generating those leads is less than $15 per day. So, if you can find a good niche and work out a deal with a local company that fills it, you can make a very nice chunk of change.

Technorati Tags: business, lead generation, marketing, revenue sharing

How To Deal With Click Fraud

Today TechCrunch has a post written about the rise of click fraud in 2007. The article references a new report from a company named Click Forensics. The report states that click fraud rose 15% for 2007. If you are using PPC to help you make money online, then this news is obviously important to you!

The TechCrunch article notes the following: "According to this data, nearly one out of every three clicks on a Google or Yahoo ad is fraudulent." Yowza!

Detecting Click Fraud

There are lots of options for software solutions on how you can track click fraud. Some options are more expensive than others. But how can you detect it on the cheap?

First, you need to make sure you track your incoming clicks. Usually this is done by sending the user to a specific URL when they click one of your ads. That URL will handle the tracking for you by making a note in a database. This is easily accomplished in PHP (and other scripting languages). If you aren't one for writing code, there are scripts available for download that are either very cheap or completely free.

The easiest — and most obvious — way to spot click fraud is seeing multiple clicks from the same IP address (or IP address subnet). There are companies out there who's sole purpose is to commit click fraud. They have multiple servers running 24/7 submitting phony clicks. So pay attention to the IP addresses and look for patterns.

Filing Click Fraud

So if you happen to notice that one of your campaigns has been the victim of click fraud, what do you do? For the big search engines the process is usually very simple. Give their advertising department a call and let them know about the trend you spotted. They will usually ask you to submit a ticket of some sort with the evidence you have as well as a URL where they can see the evidence for themselves. So if you keep your data password protected, you may need to add a new account for the search engine folks.

Some companies — like Google — issue a credit pretty quickly (48 hours or so) but it can take up to a week for them to investigate. I've noticed that Yahoo tends to take longer than most to issue a credit. I had one case with Yahoo open for nearly 3 weeks before credit was issued.

Conclusion

Since PPC advertising is so important to affiliate marketers, the trend of click fraud is costing you money (after all, time is money!) If it starts to become a serious issue for you it is probably worth the time and effort to submit the trouble to the advertising platform and get some credit issued to your account.

Even if the fraud isn't denting your pocket too much, it is a good idea to keep track of it. Removing fraudulent clicks from your over all tracking will help show you your true conversion rate.

Technorati Tags: click tracking, advertising, click fraud, ppc

Web Designers Are Worth Their Weight In Gold

I realize that the title is pretty obvious in the internet marketing world but it's something that many of us forget far too often. A good web & graphics designer can sky rocket your conversions (profits) and turn an OK campaign into a great one.

One thing I usually try to do when creating a new web page is take a free template and tweak it into something I think looks good. Problem is that I don't have a creative bone in my body — at least in the web design sense. The end result is I wasted time because I still end up paying someone a few bucks to make a nicer page for me.

I am a programmer not a designer and because I know how to write HTML, and CSS to a lesser degree, doesn't mean that I should. I've also purchased templates in the past and that has been OK but my best results have always come from a unique design created by someone with the proper mind for it. Meaning, someone who can envision the website and then bring it to life.

Finding a good designer is not always easy. I use two guys who I got via a referral and they give me a break on the price. I usually only need a single page from them and I can create any other pages needed from their one page template. So that helps lower the cost but I still have to pay for any additional graphics I may need.

Here is a recent example. I built a "rating" type site for a niche I am starting to promote. After the usual test, tweak, repeat process I didn't feel it was performing very well. The next step was the design and that cost me money that I was trying to save for advertising costs. After the new design was ready and put in place, I saw conversions jump up at least 150%. I still can't explain it because the site doesn't look so great to me, and presents the same information as the old design, but it obviously has something that is more appealing to the end user. My brain just doesn't see things in that way.

As a programmer I tend to want to do things myself. Sort a control freak I suppose. I am slowly learning that design is something I need to outsource because in the long run, I'll save time and money.

Technorati Tags: advertising, graphics, marketing, web design

Million Dollar Goal - January Update

This is a quick recap of my progress for January. I made a crazy goal for this year and so I am keeping people updated here.

Business

The company I co-founded is doing well for our current stage. We are live and actively getting subscription sales. We are right on track for the volume of business that we are currently able to handle. One negative is our customer up selling. It's progressing slower than we would like but we still need to put together a proper training system for our only sales guy. I am still not ready to announce the company name / website; maybe in the February recap.

My affiliate marketing efforts fell a little behind because I was super busy with other projects. I have been spending my personal time catching up and tuning campaigns, etc. I still made slightly more than 6K profit for the month. I am positive if I had more time to focus on these efforts I could have squeezed out another thousand or two. These are small numbers compared to others, but I am very happy with my progress in these ventures.

Personal

One thing that has been really tough is my dieting. Well, the issue is, I haven't been dieting! Prior to this year I had been working from home for quite a while and got used to the convenience it provided in terms of making a healthier lunch, etc. Now that I am commuting into Los Angeles again, lunch is usually the nearest place selling a hamburger. Not good.

February Goals

I will spend more time on my affiliate marketing efforts. I do have a full plate on my hands this month but I will make the time to tweak my campaigns and try to up my profit for the month.

I am also starting on a new project that should have a beta available by March. It should be ready for full public consumption by the end of March. I don't want to say too much about this yet, but it will be a service to help with visitor conversions. More on this later.

I will continue to hit the weight racks every morning. I need to design a new work out routine, as it's been far to long since the last time I switched it up. It's generally smart to switch routines every 6-8 weeks to keep your muscles guessing. I will also focus on running a little more, though my left knee has been pretty sore for the last week.

I have to start eating better. My usual lapse here is my lunch. I have to make the effort to get a lunch ready the night before and take it into work with me. If I could drop 10 pounds of fat I think I would be satisfied and try to maintain at that point.

Wrapping Up

That's a basic recap for January on my progress of hitting the $1 million dollar goal I have for 2008. When I announce more about the company I co-founded I will give more details in terms of financial gain, etc. Will I hit my goal of a million bucks this year? I don't know, but I sure will try! Regardless, it is shaping up to be a very good year in my life. A life changing year.

Technorati Tags: affiliate, business, make money online, marketing, weight lifting

Getting Rich Quick - Online

I stumbled across an article today titled How To Make $1,000,000 By Blogging. It's an awesome read and pretty funny through out the entire piece. It's basic outline is that you use the money you make from your blogging to buy lottery tickets to win $1,000,000+.

The moral of the story is that blogging is not a get rich quick scheme. I've written before about how I plan to make a million bucks this year and in the post I give an outline of my overall plans to achieve this goal. A lot of people feel that they can throw together a blog, mix in a few ads and post a few times a week and they are good as gold. Unfortunately, it's never that easy!

When you look at the TechCrunch's and the John Chow's of the blogosphere, there is an underlying theme to be found — hard work. There isn't much in life, that's worth anything, that comes to you easily. Building a million dollar blog, or website in general, is no exception.

If you are willing to put in the blood, sweat & tears you will be successful. Stay motivated and never give up, even when you fail (and continue to fail). Get up, try again, repeat. Throw enough sh*t on the wall and eventually some will stick (probably have that saying incorrect but I'm a city boy, what do you want from me)

In my opinion there is no better opportunity for an entrepreneur than the internet. Instant access to a global marketplace and relatively inexpensive methods to setup shop. It's never been easier for us dreamers to "make it happen" than right now. My question to you is... what are you waiting for?

Technorati Tags: blog, make money online, marketing, millions

$100 Yahoo Credit Coupon

I got this heads up from UberAffiliate.

Get $100 Yahoo credit for search pay per click advertising. Minimum deposit required is $30, so spend $30 and get $100. Quick way to test out those campaigns you have been wanting to try! If you already have a YSM account, just create a new one to activate the $100 credit.

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: coupon, ppc, yahoo

Monetizing Adult Websites

I normally don't like to write about the sites I use to generate income but I have blogged about this before. I co-own the NSFW website AhCabron.com. The basic idea is that users upload their photos so others can comment and vote on them. Most of the work that I need to do on this site is just help approve the uploads. We try our best to make sure that the uploaded photos are not obviously copyrighted, etc. and the users take it from there.

Adult sites that are free to use are usually more difficult to monetize. A good chunk of the users will be 14-18 year old boys who have no credit card and rarely click ads. The only form of monetization we currently use is text ads via BlackLabelAds (or AdBrite) and some affiliate banner ads.

In the past we were working hard doing direct deals with advertisers. That made much more money than just text ads do, but was a lot more work. We didn't feel the return was worth the effort, so we slowly phased that out and went back to text ads.

We also do ZERO advertising. All our traffic is, and always has been, referral traffic. Some how word got out about it and people starting flooding in and bringing a friend with them. So much so that we had to buy a second server to split the load.

With all this traffic success, I still haven't figured out how to turn that traffic into real money. We are averaging 250K page views per day, but our checks every month are very low compared to our traffic. I have a few ideas I want to try to up the websites income but I have been thinking...

How do I successfully monetize a "free to users" adult website? I am hoping someone out there in the blogosphere will have some experience in this area and send me a tip. Any takers?

Technorati Tags: adult websites, ahcabron, make money online, advertising

Discover the Art of Hypnotic Writing

A few months ago I decided to look into, and learn about, internet marketing, affiliate sales & PPC (pay per click) techniques. The industry was interesting to me and I figured I could use my skills as a programmer to make me some extra cash on the side. I will write more on this in an upcoming post.

When I started learning I found that "writing" is the bread and butter of affiliate marketing & sales. I decided to educate myself and help improve my writing skills. I ran into a book titled "Hypnotic Writing" by Joe Vitale. I was a little skeptical because the cover art was pretty cheesy. I tried not to judge this book by it's cover (insert "buh bump bump" sound). Best decision I could have made as this book is awesome. I keep it on my desk now for immediate reference when I get stuck trying to spice up some of my sales copy or PPC ads.

So what is Hypnotic Writing?

As I was working on this post I stumbled across this article written by Chris Bloczynski, where he accurately defines Hypnotic Writing as:

"Hypnotic Writing is an effective technique that marketers and advertisers have used for years to make the most of people’s natural inclinations and conditioning."

If you consider the potential that a hypnotic sales letter or advertisement has, you can see that it's a pretty powerful technique. As a side note, Chris also wrote an awesome article titled 99 Headline Techniques Revealed that is related to this topic; I suggest you read it.

There are several types of hypnotic commands that can be used when you are writing your sales letter or ad copy. Here are a few methods mentioned in the Hypnotic Writing book.

Direction

Directing the reader to complete the action that you want them to. Just read the example below to see what I mean:

"As you continue reading this page..."

Quotes

It's a fact that people read what's in quotation marks. Ever notice that the headlines on various sales pages are almost always in quotes? People naturally read what is in quotes so headlines that are hypnotically powerful placed in quotes can be very effective. You can also use an actual quote from somebody famous or one that is inspiring and can be related to your sales letter.

"Finally! Free from the Rat Race!"

Conversation

Reading a conversational dialogue is a great way to invoke emotion in your reader. When the reader relates to the dialogue they place themselves in the conversation. This is a natural reaction and can be used to help with your sales conversions.

"Man! My tooth is killing me!" Johnny said.
"Ouch! I had my wisdom teeth removed last week." I replied
"Woah... Sounds painful!"
"Nah. Dr. Smith is the best! No pain at all."

These are just a few techniques that can be used in Hypnotic Writing. You're smart enough to see the benefits that Hypnotic Writing can offer you when used correctly. It just might be what your sales letter is lacking. Take some time and do some reading on the subject. In the world of internet sales, your ad & sales copy is your "pitch" so why not give yourself every advantage possible?

Oh, by the way. Notice how many times I mention "Hypnotic Writing" in this post? Repetition is also a method of Hypnotic Writing =)

Technorati Tags: advertising, hypnotic, ppc, sales, writing